Create A Companion Community
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People being able to build relationships with each other around something that's really important to them, around a transition in their lives. Being able to then talk about your product as an ingredient into that becomes so much easier. So you're not spending all your time selling them on the product itself or the social selling aspect of it or the testimonial aspect of it. But it's like oxygen. You are an ingredient in their lives.

Hey, I'm Gina Bianchini, and this is People Magic, where we talk about the absolute easiest way to create a $1 million community and a business that you can be proud of. Hi, Gina. I just launched an e-commerce business, a new supplement that people absolutely love, but I feel like there is something I could be doing for the community. What are your thoughts on combining those?

So first of all, congratulations on launching a new business. And the fact that you are getting great positive feedback from people about it is awesome. So, you know, whether it's a supplement or whether it's any kind of product business, I'm going to sort of zoom out and talk about the different ways that you can really use

community effectively. But then I also want to talk about something that, you know, there's the concrete community, but there's also a number of techniques that I have seen recently used so effectively in launching a new e-commerce business. I'll flag those as well. So obviously, as you think about creating a companion community to your e-commerce business, the more that you are able to tap into all

the basics in creating a community that we tackle in People Magic, the masterclass, making sure that as you think about your ideal customer, you translate that into an ideal member. So a customer,

They're buying from you. They might be buying a subscription. They might not. A member is somebody who is stoked to show up and meet other people because they are excited about their identity and meeting and building relationships with people on the same path. So that's the biggest difference between an e-com business and a community business is

And we're not going to talk about, oh, could I charge a membership? Could I not charge a membership? Like this is right now, what we are focused on is...

Can you sell more product as a result of having a community? And then also, where do you want to have a community? What are the pros and cons of having a community just on Instagram versus your own community, on your own platform versus TikTok or anything else? So there is the shift from thinking about your customer as either a one-time purchaser or, you know, again, if they're buying a subscription to really thinking about them in a

and what is most important to them right now in their lives. What are the transitions that they are going through? Because when people are going through transitions, they are the most motivated to join a community. They're the most motivated to contribute to a community. They are the most likely to get results and transformation from your community. And the best part, they are most likely to talk about it to anybody who will listen, and then they can bring new members in.

So that's why you really want to focus in on what is the transition that my ideal member is going through and what's on the other side of that transition. What are the results and transformation that they want to have? What would help them have their best year ever? So your supplement or any kind of

physical product is an ingredient into the life of that ideal member. But you want to think a little bit more holistically about that person when they are a member as opposed to just a customer or even a prospective customer. So as you think about that transition,

then you want to be asking yourself the question of what would make people really excited to meet each other? So is it about how are they shifting how they exercise?

Or do they have a yoga practice? Or do they not exercise today, which is why they're taking this supplement? And is there another sort of path for them to be able to go on? The beautiful thing when you think about creating a companion community or companion membership, I haven't even gotten to ambassadors yet. I'll get to those in a hot minute. But when you think

about that membership and people being able to build relationships with each other around something that's really important to them, around a transition in their lives. Being able to then talk about your product as an ingredient into that becomes so

so much easier. So you're not spending all your time selling them on the product itself or the social selling aspect of it or the testimonial aspect of it, but it's like oxygen. You are an ingredient in their lives. So that's why I'm such a big fan of companion communities or companion memberships for any kind of product business. It just lets you be

be an enabler beyond the purchase in helping someone achieve results and transformation that they can't get on their own. The other thing that we know in the membership world is how to get somebody to keep coming back. And in e-comm, people all the time are like, okay, this is what you're doing in your database and your emails, and you're able to go back and talk to somebody four years earlier. I saw a friend of mine writing about it the other day.

So all of that is true. And there is a science to e-commerce. I think the wild card of success is how you create a companion community. And we see a lot of successful companion communities on Mighty today. Now let's shift gear to think about ambassadors. So ambassadors are a little bit different than just like a straight up

product or customer community insofar as ambassadors tend to have some influence. Why? Because they have a great email list with a lot of people who trust them in and around the topic that trust your ideal member around the transitions in their lives. Like, that's why you probably are excited to reach out to them, not just because they recommend something

all supplements in all cases, but you know that your product can be an ingredient into the content, the relationships, the experience that those ambassadors create in their lives and in their work.

And so as you think about ambassadors, it's just a customer community with a little bit higher shine to it. So much more of a premium experience is really what you're going to want to create. One of the things we see a lot is how much more effective...

An ambassador community is when you're introducing ambassadors to each other. They are excited to meet and collaborate with other ambassadors, learn from other ambassadors because they're all roughly of the same level and scale and can have...

a lot of impact on each other because what? They're a community. They're sharing stories, experiences, and ideas, not just about your supplement. So ambassadors are a flavor or a slightly different take on a customer community. And you can have both. You can have ambassadors, you can have a customer community. We also see a lot of e-commerce businesses creating Mighty Networks

for ambassador programs in ways that are super effective. So the way to think about ambassadors, you want somebody to be an ambassador for your brand and for your product because they probably already have content, a following,

an email newsletter, a podcast, a community of some kind of their own. And typically, again, just like your customer community, you want to be reaching to the higher identity of human beings when you are thinking about either a customer community or ambassadors.

With ambassadors, you want to think about having a more premium experience, something that feels more exclusive. You want to make sure that you are providing them a lot of value beyond your supplements, beyond what you want them to do. And you can do that if you bring them together in their own community, because if you are able to be a host of ambassadors such that

You're introducing them in ways that they can have collaborations, in ways that they can create more value for each other. That in and of itself is something that regardless of what happens with your e-com business, your supplements, your product, you have created stronger relationships.

And more credibility because you've brought these higher profile ambassadors together in a community and offer them a really premium experience. Consider branded mobile apps. One of the things that we offer at Mighty Networks is branded mobile experiences because then you can have a holistic 360 degree experience.

experience for ambassadors. And that has made a huge difference in a number of the e-commerce businesses that have come to Mighty and created thriving ambassador communities on our platform. So I see that a lot. You want to roll out the red carpet for ambassadors, but also really dial in, really dial in how they're meeting and building relationships with each other.

And then finally, I want to talk about something that is a really, I would say, underappreciated strategy for growth in general for many e-com businesses, especially those that are starting out.

So you said that you were starting or were in the early days of an e-com business, and that is so cool. And so congratulations, especially because people love it. What I see regularly is that the conventional thinking of e-commerce is you need to have ads and it's all about your, you know, return on advertising spend. And you got to think about your creative and your creative should be UGC. And all of that stuff is subversive.

solid, like having an email newsletter, like all that's solid, but everybody else is doing that too. And especially if you're starting out and you're bootstrapping your business, you may not have the money to spend on meta ads or on, probably you have the money to spend on an email newsletter and obviously a community, but something to consider is

is opening your contacts and identifying 25 or 50 or even 100 people. I like to think about it as the 100 true friends who you can essentially offer an annual subscription to your supplements. And

that, especially in your earliest days, they may support you because they like you, not because you've necessarily proven the value of your product yet. And, you know, a lot of people will think, oh, well, isn't this the same thing as asking my, you know, friends for, you know, an investment? On some level, sure. But in my experience, there's always going to be a set of people in your life, always going to be a

And they may not be your closest ties, but they might be warm-ish ties or even like one or two degrees of separation. That if you go to them with that annual subscription to your product, that annual subscription to a membership that you've been really able to figure out how to help people through a transition and then let your e-commerce product grow.

be an ingredient into that identity or into that lifestyle. Those 100 true friends, again, could be 10 or 50. If you make the ask at an annual subscription at a higher tier price point, love the idea of founding members. There's also the power of like a lifetime membership to the people that you are just getting started with. I think that this is a technique for

bootstrapping businesses that not nearly enough people are taking advantage of. And that is true for e-com. That is true for community and memberships. That is true for courses. And I will tell you, it's even true for in real life small businesses. So I'll finish with a story here because I think we've done a good job of covering customer community, covering ambassadors and covering 120

true friends as a strategy or opening your contacts and reaching out with what is that offer that's going to get you more cash because people are like, yeah, sure, I'll buy an annual subscription as opposed to just doing the things that you're supposed to do in e-commerce. But I love the story of a small business.

So during the pandemic, there were many small businesses that couldn't actually survive and they were struggling. One of them was a high-end shoe repair business here in my hometown. And

They were about to have their lights turned off. They literally had not been able to pay their electricity bill because of COVID. And this was a little while out of COVID. And the owner asked for a really substantial loan. And I was like, well, I'm not going to give you a substantial loan, but here's what I'm going to do instead. I'm going to help you craft an offer that is one year of unlimited shoe repair for, I think it was like $600 paid up front.

And in the world of memberships, this is like a no-brainer. This is like what you do when you sell a $600 annual membership. But for many people, and maybe someone who is listening to this pod or watching this on YouTube, maybe this is helpful, which is that same model of annual subscriptions can be a great source of cash in advance for

if you are struggling in your business, if you are a service business, if you are a product business. Because the reality is most people didn't use $600 worth of shoe repair in a year, but they did it for a higher purpose. They did it because it was a good thing to do and it feels awesome. They did it because it was meaningful and they did it because it was creative. How awesome

often does a shoe repair come and say, hey, you can be a member of my shoe repair. I now offer an annual membership and it's unlimited shoe repair. And by the way, I'll drop them off at your house and it's saved.

their business. And you know what else? It ended up being super profitable for them because not only were they able to keep the lights on, invest a little bit in the business itself, but then they were able to get more and more of their customers back and survive and now thrive. I share this story for a

Number one, because I think that we have gotten too stuck in our ways of like, this is the exact way of building this exact kind of business. And I think that what we can learn from other businesses, other ways of marketing, other ways of charging is ripe opportunity.

for innovation, it's ripe for creativity, and it is ripe for creating really, really profitable businesses. So that may be an e-com business who creates a customer community. That might be thinking about how you level up to offer something to people that's much bigger than your physical product alone. That might be a new approach to how you recruit and retain amazing ambassadors. That might be a physical business that

has the opportunity to sell its services and sell its product in new and interesting ways. I think it's really important to pay attention to all the different ways people are providing value to customers and how they charge for it.

across all of these different businesses, categories, markets, whatever you want to call it. And I think it makes each and every one of us as entrepreneurs so much more effective at what we do. So hopefully that is helpful as you think about being a physical product business, being an e-com business as you...

explore where you're going to get your first customers, where are you going to get your first regular customers, and how do you expand from, you know, what I like to say is your people, your people's people, and then your community's people. With that, I'm Gina Bianchini. This is People Magic, and I will see you in the next episode.

Thank you for being a part of People Magic. I could not do this show without you. If you want a deeper dive on any of these topics, how to build a community, run a membership, choose your pricing, I have a nine part free People Magic Masterclass on our website and the link is in the show notes. This is something that I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to share with you. So hopefully you'll find it valuable. And I can't do this show

without some burning questions. So everything that I tackle is something someone just like you has offered their idea or offered their question. We take it and turn it into a show. So in the show notes, there is the link to leave me a voice memo and I hope you'll take advantage of it.